‘Ranji Trophy performances ignored by selectors’: Siddhesh Lad calls IPL ‘shortcut’ for Indian team

MUMBAI: It is a sign of where things have come in Indian cricket. Siddhesh Lad is a seasoned first class player. Long known as his team’s ‘crisis man’, the 34-year-old Mumbai batsman made his first-class debut some 12 years ago in November 2013 and scored 5623 runs in 82 matches @ 44.27, with 15 hundreds and 30 fifties. Lad scored five hundreds – he was Mumbai’s top scorer with 774 runs in eight matches @ 77.40 in the 2025-26 Ranji Trophy season. However, the consistent domestic cricket batter has now lost faith in the Ranji Trophy as a platform from which the national selectors pick potential players from India.Speaking to TOI on Thursday on the sidelines of the jersey launch event of Mumbai South Central Maratha Royals, the defending T20 Mumbai League champions, Lad said he strongly believes that it is the performance in the IPL that is considered the only criteria for selection. The 4th season of T20 Mumbai league starts at Wankhede Stadium from Monday.Citing the example of Jammu and Kashmir pacer Aaquib Nabi, who was the top wicket-taker in the Ranji Trophy last season with 60 scalps in 10 matches at 12:56 to help his team win their first title last season, while being ignored in the one-off Test against Afghanistan, Lad told this paper, “I think you are right when you are 100% right. breaking into the Indian team is the harsh reality that national cricket performances are being devalued. I’m not saying I’ve performed well, so pick me in the Indian team, but I think someone like Auqib Nabi, if he’s worked so hard and won the Randji Trophy so easily, then he deserves to be picked in the Indian Test side.”Lad further explained his point, “I want to say that even IPL players know how difficult it is to play a whole season (Ranji Trophy) and maintain your fitness. But if you don’t do well in IPL these days or don’t have a good season in IPL, your chances of getting into the Indian Test team are slim. If you don’t play in your career, it’s difficult for you to progress in IPL,Nabi took 44 wickets@13.27 in the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season. Explaining the harsh reality of Indian cricket, Lad said, “You are sending a wrong message to the domestic cricketers that even if you do well in the Ranji Trophy, it doesn’t change your cricket career, but if you do well in a few games in the IPL, you can make it to the Indian Test team. In the beginning, if you play for the Trophy, if you play like India, don’t perform, then you won’t, but eventually when we really see the selection, it is when a lot of things go wrong.’In such a scenario, would he advise the promising youngsters in the Maratha Royals team to focus on playing and succeeding in the T20 Mumbai League and IPL rather than trying to break into the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team?

Do you think IPL should be the main criteria for selection in Indian cricket team?

“Definitely, I would say that. I won’t deny that if you see that you can play for India after just one season of IPL, which is something you may not be able to do after playing Ranji Trophy for ten years, then it means we can’t tell players to focus only on Ranji Trophy. If a player is playing well in T20 Mumbai League and then he cuts it to play for the Indian team,” Lad said, matter-of-factly.As a domestic cricket thoroughbred, Lad is hurt by the way things have developed in Indian cricket at present. “I have seen so many players who have done exceptionally well in the Ranji Trophy. But just because they didn’t get that opportunity in the IPL, they never got a chance to make it to the Indian Test side,” lamented Lad.Meanwhile, Lad and Maratha Royals head coach Amit Dani welcomed the availability of Mumbai and Rajasthan Royals pacer Tushar Deshpande, who missed last season, this time for Maratha Royals.